The sidewalkification of Fremont Street in the ’90s put in place the dynamics for this human stream; the light-show canopy was the attractant. The scene that resulted was, at worst, amusingly skeezy. But to my memory, never did the street take on a nightside vibe of such jangling and anxious desperation as it did last evening. Random shoals of people seemed to circle each other as though moved by invisible currents of threat; the trajectories seemed skewed; you’d bump, not brush, shoulders with a stranger and get a glowering look. What was this, some special event brewing that brought out a passive-aggressive crowd?

Nothing like that. On the walk back, I realized the likely source: Slotzilla, the 12-story zipline launch platform made to resemble (what else?) a slot machine. The Fremont Street Experience originally proposed to turn the street into a sort of valve system: Drawn by the light show, tourists would congregate on the promenade, and then hopefully be flushed into the surrounding casinos afterward. Slotzilla, a monolithic slab planted onto the east end of the Fremont Street Experience, now seems to act as a cork. That’s what I felt last night as the wind kicked up a flurry of napkins, plastic cups and cigarette butts: pressure, and a crowd’s incipient animal panic at being entrapped in a dubious entertainment with no way out.